Yu Xiaxing stared at the video playing in front of her.
It was shot at noon on Monday.
In the footage, four or five boys huddled together in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Trapped in the middle of the group was a slightly chubby boy.
Unlike the others, what he held in his hand was a dark brown cigar.
He showed off to the boys around him, saying, "While every other guy our age is smoking Liqun, I've already moved on to Cohiba. It's just... you guys get the vibe."
The other students all looked at him with envy, crowding around to heap praise on him.
Yu Xiaxing fixed her gaze on that cigar.
This specific model, size, and band—why did it look exactly like the one from the box Su Hao had taken away?
Since when did Cohiba become something so common?
Even if it were widespread, this particular version was extremely rare in China.
This student clearly didn't even know to use a cigar cutter to snip the cap off, which meant that with his family background, he would never normally have access to something like this.
He must have gotten it by chance and brought it to school just to show off.
So did this cigar come from Su Hao's box? What connection did this student have to Su Hao?
Brimming with curiosity, Yu Xiaxing first took a screenshot and asked Lu Yanzhao what the student's name was.
After getting the answer that his name was Zheng Wenhao, she immediately sent the student's photo and information to Ruan Tian.
Yu Xiaxing: "It's still ten thousand. Help me look into this student Zheng Wenhao's family situation. Same as last time, the more detailed the better."
Ruan Tian: "Got it, boss~"
Yu Xiaxing had just transferred the deposit when a teacher suddenly sent her a message: "Board Director Yu, we've picked out all the students in our class who violated the rules. What should we do to deal with them?"
Yu Xiaxing's original plan had been to punish these students severely, to intensify the conflict between the two sides.
She hated secondhand smoke herself, so there was no way she would ever condone students smoking.
But halfway through carrying out that plan, she'd already drawn a ton of flak online—many parents and teachers were unhappy with her.
If she started handing out harsh punishments right now, wouldn't that accidentally turn public opinion in her favor and ruin her plan?
That wouldn't do.
After all, the second assessment would be ending tomorrow.
It'd be better to wait until the assessment was over, after she'd secured the yellow card, to punish the students severely.
Then she could go to her grandpa looking all teary and say, "Ahhh grandpa, I really took the wrong path this time. I'll fix it right away, I'll punish the students properly immediately."
Knowing her grandpa's personality, even if he doted on her a lot, he would never interfere with the competition's results.
This way, she could keep the yellow card she'd earned, and not let the behavior she despised go unpunished.
So she replied to all the teachers: "Let's stay quiet for now. Keep an eye out for one more day, see if we can catch more rule-breakers. We'll crack down on all of them this Friday!"
The teacher replied, clearly approving: "Brilliant idea, Board Director!"
-
Before long, school was out.
Zheng Wenhao was being incredibly cocky, loudly showing off to the group of boys around him, going on and on about "Cohiba" this and "Cohiba" that, so Ruan Tian had no trouble picking him out from the crowd.
A few minutes later, a black car pulled over to the side of the road.
The window rolled down, revealing a man in his forties in the driver's seat.
Zheng Wenhao waved goodbye to his friends: "My dad's here to pick me up. See you all tomorrow!"
He then yelled loudly at the car: "Dad, why did you take our Maybach in to get repairs again? You had to drive this cheap car here!"
Only after shouting that at the top of his voice did he yank the door open and climb into the passenger seat.
Ruan Tian immediately got on her electric scooter and followed the car.
A dozen minutes later, the car pulled into Cuihu Yuan, a mid-tier residential complex.
Ruan Tian followed right in. The security guard, seeing she was dressed like a delivery worker, didn't question her at all.
She rode all the way into the underground garage.
Ruan Tian parked her electric scooter in a hidden corner, then quickly pulled a small camera with a telephoto lens out of her big canvas bag.
She pulled her cap down low, using the parked cars as cover to move quickly closer.
The Zheng father and son had already gotten out of the car. Zheng Wenhao was in the middle of complaining about something, when his dad smacked him on the head, apparently scolding him.
Just then, another luxury car slowly pulled into a nearby parking spot.
A woman stepped out of the fancy car... she looked oddly familiar.
Right, Ruan Tian remembered now—her name was Qiao Tang.
Normally, no one would recognize such a minor celebrity, but Ruan Tian was a huge short drama fan who binged them nonstop whenever she had free time, so she knew exactly who the woman was.
Right after her stepped out another man, in his early thirties, good-looking in an ordinary sort of way...
Oh right, he was also a somewhat well-known public figure—Su Hao, the fiancé of the Fourth Young Miss of the Yu Group.
When Zheng Wenhao saw the woman, a flicker of reluctance crossed his face, but he shuffled over and called out in a low voice: "Mom."
Qiao Tang didn't react much to the way he addressed her, just gave a faint "mm-hmm" in response. Her gaze instead turned to the Su Hao beside her, her eyes full of a mix of dependence and reproach.
Su Hao looked at Zheng Wenhao.
"Little Yu, I think I left a box of cigars at your place last week. Later I noticed one was missing. Did you get curious and take it to mess around with?"
Zheng Wenhao's body went visibly stiff. His eyes darted away as he stiffly denied it: "No, no I didn't! Uncle, I didn't take it! I don't even smoke cigars!"
"It's just one cigar," Qiao Tang cut in to smooth things over, looping her arm through Su Hao's and cooing at him playfully. "Who cares if one's gone? I'm exhausted. Let's go, shall we?"
Su Hao glanced at Qiao Tang. "It's not that simple. That cigar is special, really rare in China. I'm worried that if someone from the Yu family spots it and follows the clues, they'll figure out what's going on between the two of us. That'll be a real hassle to explain."
Qiao Tang waved his concern off. "Ugh, you're overthinking this. It's just one cigar. Who'd be that sharp? The Yu family runs such a huge corporation, they'd never bother with tiny little things like that. Come on, let's head upstairs. I'm starving."
Su Hao didn't press the matter any further. The four of them walked together toward the elevators.
Zheng Wenhao's dad and Qiao Tang walked in front, while Su Hao and Zheng Wenhao trailed half a step behind.
Right before the elevator doors were about to close, Ruan Tian seized her chance. Hiding in the shadow of a garage pillar, she pretended to be a delivery person rushing to drop off a late order, and darted past them.
As she brushed by Zheng Wenhao, she quietly attached a tiny camera to his jacket.
The elevator doors slid shut.
Ruan Tian quickly stepped back into the shadows to continue her investigation.
-
The Zheng family, Su Hao, and Qiao Tang all arrived at the Zheng family's home.
Qiao Tang whined softly, "I'm so worn out. That old witch gave me a hard time again today... Hao Ge, when am I finally going to get to play the lead role?"
Su Hao smiled warmly as he comforted her: "Soon, soon. Once I marry Fourth Miss Yu, I'll get you two lead drama roles every month."
Qiao Tang threw her arms around him: "Thank you, darling!"
Right after that, the two of them started kissing, right in front of the Zheng father and son. They moved together until they stumbled into the master bedroom, and the door slammed shut behind them.
After that, muffled, suggestive sounds and soft laughter drifted out from the room.
In the living room, only the Zheng father and son were left.
Zheng Wenhao glanced at the bedroom door with obvious displeasure, and whispered to his dad: "Dad, I think you're so stuck and spineless. Aren't you what people call a 'green glove' in the entertainment industry?"
"Y'know, that's when a guy doesn't dare let his wife know he's got a mistress. To keep her from getting suspicious, he finds a patsy to marry the mistress."
"Then if the guy and his mistress have a kid, they put the baby under the patsy's household registration. The legal wife never finds out for the rest of her life."
"But I think you're being such a coward. It's so embarrassing. Can't you just cut ties with them already?"
Zheng's father, however, was perfectly calm. He gave a faint smile and said, "We could cut ties with them, sure, but then we'd have to live a hard life. The apartment we're staying in right now was provided by Uncle Su. Are you willing to move out and rent a place with me?"
Zheng Wenhao was left speechless for a moment. After stammering for a long while, he blurted out angrily, "Then why couldn't you have worked harder to make me a rich second-generation kid?!"
Zheng's father remained as unflappable as ever — after all, panicking would get him nowhere in his line of work.
He glanced at his son with a chuckle and said, "When I was a teenager, I was just like you, wanting both dignity and money."
"But after getting knocked around by society for decades, I've learned that anyone who can have even one of those two things is lucky."
"The vast majority of people end up with neither dignity nor money."
"If you keep acting up like this, you'll end up as one of those people who has neither."
Zheng Wenhao was still too young to grasp the hard-earned life lessons that these middle-aged men had accumulated over the years.
All of a sudden, Zheng's father's eyes locked onto his son's clothes, and he exclaimed in shock, "What's this? On the underside of your shirt... why is there something stuck to it?"
"This — this is a hidden camera? Holy crap, when did this get stuck on you?!"
